The American Class System and the Political Correctness of the Regressive Left

By political correctness, I do not mean the term as it has come to be employed on the right—that is, the expectation of adherence to the norms of basic decency, like refraining from derogatory epithets. I mean its older, intramural denotation: the persistent attempt to suppress the expression of unwelcome beliefs and ideas. — William Deresiewicz

A few days ago, The American Scholar published a revealing article by William Deresiewicz on the political correctness of the regressive left. The article, which is beautifully written, entwines several themes, and one of those themes is that advocates of political correctness on the college and university campuses in the United States are almost exclusively drawn from two social classes: The privileged upper and upper-middle classes.

Those two classes are predominantly comprised of affluent, politically liberal or neoliberal White and Asian professionals. They overwhelmingly attend elite private colleges and universities — the hotbeds of political correctness — and at those institutions, they constitute by far and wide the vast majority of the student body and faculty.

If Deresiewicz is correct, the implications are interesting. Today’s elite students will almost certainly go on to become tomorrow’s elite professionals. I wonder if we’re going to see safe spaces in the corporations, trigger warnings on business memos, and endless cat and mouse games of “Gottcha for being Politically Incorrect!” played out in business offices. Of course, those would be the minor changes. The major changes would be made in politics and law.

8 thoughts on “The American Class System and the Political Correctness of the Regressive Left”

Those that shout “political incorrectness” are practically authoritarian, if there was a political party advocating such a thing, riling up those regressive left in the process, (That’s the first time i’ve heard of the term) we’d be in a bit of trouble. And America is already in trouble.

Good insight, Teresums. I was reading about a scientific study last night that found politically correct people come in two kinds. One of those kinds resembles the authoritarian followers of tyrants and dictators like Hitler or Stalin. Here’s the article for you, if you’re interested:

I love listening to Milo Yiannopoulos butcher political correctness. The left simply doesn’t represent leftist ideals anymore. It’s no longer about free speech and all that. I also agree with a lot of conservative view points and their support for capitalism over socialism.

I think the left nowadays is split between the regressive left and the progressive left. The regressive left are the ones into political correctness. The progressive left opposes their political correctness just as much as you and I do.

Capitalism v. Socialism? I think a mixed system is best. What do you think?

Well, I’ve addressed my views on capitalism in one of my posts called taxing the rich. I support mixed system till the extent it provides equal opportunities. The moment a mixed system attempts to provide people with equal outcomes, I oppose it.

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